"...secular humanism will not be able to defeat the stronger ideology of Islam just as the soviet union ultimately gave up trying to defeat them militarily in Afghanistan."

Despite the known duplicity of the Soviet regime it - as far as I know - didn't just give up trying to defeat the Muslim terrorists in Afghanistan but in view of the overwhelming American military aid (e.g. "stingers" ) to the said terrorists - then known as "freedom-fighters" - was forced to withdraw and leave the country and its pro-Soviet regime in Kabul a prey to various Moslem warlords. Fighting only Afghans the Soviets would have won easily as it seemed at the beginning. But fighting Afghans and Americans was too much for the Russians.

In other places and times the Soviets were more successful dealing with Moslems as they showed in Central Asia with the basmachi movement in the 20-ies . This , of course , doesn't invalidate the fact that the Soviet policy towards Islam was characterised in many cases by opportunism and concessions which , howerer , it shared with the American policy towards Islam . But on the whole as long as the Soviet Union existed the Soviet Moslems were kept under control and posed no threat to Moscow and it was only after the break-up of the country that the nightmare of revengeful and terrorizing Islam re-emerged.

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Note: Opinions expressed in comments are those of the authors alone and not necessarily those of Daniel Pipes. Original writing only, please. Comments are screened and in some cases edited before posting. Reasoned disagreement is welcome but not comments that are scurrilous, off-topic, commercial, disparaging religions, or otherwise inappropriate. For complete regulations, see the "Guidelines for Reader Comments".